Discussion: Blast

Counts me out, just. Mind you I'm not a fan of Q&A events. I like to be able to run to a known spot and move on but then part of that may be to do with the fact I don't want to have to stand around looking for something that a setter happened to chance upon whilst lying in a ditch on the side of the road and that I also haven't done a Q&A rogaine in the past ten years in Perth with fewer than two circles in the wrong place, which makes it impossibly difficult to find the answer.

This one was intended as a novelty event. The format was that each control was a street sign, and you had to match the street name to one of 20 clues on the descriptions. Controls which would have troubled the youngsters included Sunbeam (as a maker of electrical appliances), (Rudolf) Valentino, and (Bobby) Darin.

Of course, with this format, there were certain controls which you could 'get' from the other end of the street, or from the start if you already knew some of the street names...

...which is why I don't like Q&A as a format. Thankfully a few years ago SARA managed to secure a permanent loan of ACTRA's old Navlight set so now we don't have that little problem for our suburban rogaines (it was almost impossible for Admin to do the scoring in the rush at the end!).

The 3rd placed team at our last novelty event got missed off the initial result readout and then the team that got bumped down to 4th complained about it when they saw the results online! That's the problem with manual systems, not knowing if a team is missing.

Ah yes, novelty events and the minefield of attendant bonus points. Still don't think that a junior women's team should have been given the "pram" points for having a small toy pram with them instead of pushing a full-sized one! But also parents of under-4s complained that they should have been given the pusher/pram points because it's much harder to drag along a screaming toddler who wants to walk, than it is to push a pram with a sleeping baby in it.

Many of the questions appeared to be the same as last year. So if you were under 40 and had a good memory it was still ok.

Gee, competitiveness at a novelty event. Who'd have thought...

Q&A at last night's event was ok - apart from my under 40 shortsightedness meaning I was relying on older folks to tell me answers!